USA > Pennsylvania > Cambria County > Johnstown > From trail dust to star dust : the story of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, a city resulting from its environment > Part 6
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Later, the Welsh and Germans had their own sing- ing groups which competed successfully with other state and national organizations. The names of Mr. Thomas Morgan and Mr. Charles Martin are associated with these later groups.
Please refer to page 80 for information regarding the Cambria Public Library's possession of a first edition of Handel's Messiah.
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23 The Public Square
Before 1873, there were four permanent buildings on the public square or Central Park as it is known today: a stone "lock-up" on the corner near Franklin Street and Locust Street; a fire-house facing on Franklin Street; and two market houses. All were later removed and the square was used as a playground, especially for baseball and for public demonstrations until it was converted into a park in 1880. A temporary structure fronting on Main Street was known as the picture gallery because the word daguerreotype was too dif- ficult to say. The Whigs and Republicans had a platform near the market house facing on Locust Street; the Democrats had theirs near the "lock-up" facing on Main Street. During the Civil War, a platform was erected near the present site of the G.A.R. Hall. Union speeches were made here, and the "Boys in Blue" were enter- tained and received. When election returns were an- nounced, bonfires were built in the park. And here in the park, the quacks, soap dealers, and fakirs plied their nefarious trades.
One of the most popular and enthusiastic demon- strations in the Square was the celebration of the laying
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of the Atlantic Cable in August 1858. The files of The Tribune for August 21, 1858 describe it graphically. "There was a great bonfire. The fence was studded with candles. At that time there was a post-and-top-rail fence to prevent unlawful trespassing. On the top rail, three nails were driven in a group, the groups being placed 12 inches apart. In the holders, candles were placed and lighted when twilight had passed and the bonfire had started to blaze. Crowds flocked to the scene. All the bells in the Town pealed. The fire apparatus, illumined with candles, was drawn through town in the midst of a shouting populace and stirring music."
The Square was a favorite place for baseball clubs to practice, but it was not large enough for games. In 1874, however, a fountain was placed in the center of the park. It was a large round basin surrounded by six galvanized iron swans. Sixty-four trees were planted, all of which were destroyed by the great flood of 1889, when fires again illumined the square-not for celebra- tion but for destruction of inflammable rubbish piled fifteen feet high in the park.
Following the flood, there were again buildings on the park, temporary ones this time. The Flood Relief Commission constructed a two-story frame building around the four sides of the Square facing the streets. Merchants used the lower floor to start business again; doctors and lawyers occupied the upper floor. The firm of Hoover and Hughes from Bellefonte was hired by General Hastings to build these temporary store rooms and offices on the four sides of the Square. In addition, the firm built new homes. Some of these, known as
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The Public Square
Hughes houses, are still in use. Joseph Masters, chair- man of the committee, received applications for space. On July 4, under the supervision of Colonel John P. Linton, a boy drew names of applicants from a box. One year later, 1890, the Square was once more a park. The first "building" for business in the center of the town after the flood was a converted piano box at the corner of Clinton Street and Main. The son of the pro- prietor was constantly teased by his comrades with the question, "Abie, does your father need an elevator boy?"
The circuses used the park until they became too large for the space. They were then moved to Dibert Field and later to The Point. The first circus came in 1833. The Public Square was truly the heart of the City, the seat of life and recreation, and now rich in reminiscences.
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24 Disasters
PLATFORM COLLAPSE - The first great disaster in Johnstown was the fall of the Pennsylvania Railroad platform on September 14, 1866. Three people were killed, three died later, and 387 were injured. Prac- tically every family in the Town had at least one member included in the list of injured. The accident happened when President Andrew Johnson and his companions were on their "swing around the circle." Those accom- panying President Johnson included General Grant, Ad- miral Farragut, and Secretary of State William Seward. The purpose of the trip was an attempt to change the membership of Congress. Immense crowds had gathered at eleven o'clock when the special train arrived. Two thousand persons, crowded upon the platform, eager to see the President and his distinguished guests, were suddenly dropped into a pit as the twenty-foot-high platform swayed and sank when the crowd surged for- ward in their eagerness.
Among those who escaped was Dr. Henry Hinch- man, Sr. Held in his mother's arms, he with his mother escaped injury and perhaps death when her hoop skirt caught on a nail and they hung suspended until rescued.
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Disasters
When the President reached Altoona, he sent a letter and $500 to Mr. Morrell.
MINE EXPLOSION - Next to the great flood dis- aster of 1889, when thousands of lives were lost, was the mine explosion, which occurred on July 10, 1902. The loss in human lives was 114. In the Rolling Mill coal mine of the Cambria Steel Co., always considered safe, poisonous gas had collected. At the time of the explosion, there were 650 men working for the com- pany, 450 of whom were in the mine. The output of the mine was 2,600 tons a day. Forced back by the deadly gas, several of the rescuers succumbed, too. The nation- ality of the victims as they have been recorded gives a good idea of the cosmopolitan make-up of Johnstown's people at the turn of the century, one hundred years after its founding:
Polish
58
Magyar 4
Slovak
25
Welsh 2
Croatian
11
Irish
2
English
5 American
2
German
4 Slavak 1
It was a peculiar explosion, for although there was great loss of life, the damage to the mine was insig- nificant. Only the doors in one part of the mine were blown down; the report was not loud; and many of the miners did not hear it. In fact, if the concussion had been louder, many lives might have been saved.
FLOODS - What of the floods that perpetually seem to have threatened Johnstown? Geologists believe that the broadness of the Valley and the flatness of
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the hill-tops indicate that the Johnstown site was formed by local flood plains.
The first recorded flood was in 1808. Another flood occurred in 1811 when a dam across the Stony Creek was destroyed. It had fed the millrace for Holliday's iron forge. Best known of the earlier inundations were the "pumpkin floods" in the period of 1816 to 1820. These were so called because of the large number of vegetables -pumpkins predominantly-which floated in from the farms and gardens in the sections known today as Moxham and Roxbury.
Locks in the old Pennsylvania Canal were damaged by high water in February, 1832. In 1847, when a feeder dam on the Stony Creek broke, the eastern end of the canal basin was damaged and the Town was flooded from Market Street to The Point.
The next inundation of Johnstown occurred in November, 1859. Damage to bridges occurred for the first time in 1861 when the Franklin Street span was washed away. That year the Kernville section was flood- ed back to Haynes Street and the City west of Walnut Street was under water.
High water in 1867 again destroyed the Franklin Street Bridge, even though it was two feet higher than the one carried away six years earlier.
One of the rivers overflowed its banks in 1875 but no bridges were lost.
Between 1880 and 1888 seven floods were recorded. In 1880 The Point area was covered. The following year Johnstown had its highest water since 1862. There was 10 inches of water reported in the basement of the Cambria Iron Co. office on Washington Street.
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Disasters
The flood of 1883 broke a log boom on the Stony Creek at Stoystown and the water crept up Main Street almost to Walnut. Water was six inches deep on Iron Street, in Millville.
In 1884 a flood broke another log boom at Hollsopple and timber was scattered along the stream banks from there to Seward. Horse-car service to Cam- bria City was suspended.
A cloudburst on July 7, 1887, caused the Stony Creek to rise three and one-half feet in 30 minutes. The surging stream tore planks from the Franklin Street Bridge. Central Park was covered to a depth of two feet.
In 1889, the great flood brought complete disaster and destruction. The ground at The Point was raised five feet because so much earth had been washed into the Valley. Those who remember the old Capital Hotel will recall that the "basement" floor was at ground level before the 1889 flood.
In 1891, the business section was flooded with great loss to the merchants. In 1907, the flood waters reached the greatest height except for those of the great flood. In 1936, the water was higher than in the 1889 flood and the property damage was much greater. In this flood the people were able to escape; there was not the accompanying sudden disaster of a broken dam. A marker on the Public Safety Building shows the height of the water in the flood of 1936.
Until 1870, the average width of the Little Cone- maugh was 195 feet and that of the Stony Creek, 288 feet. Below The Point, the average width was 350 feet. From the time the mills began to operate, slag was
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dumped into the river and along the banks of the rivers for a two-fold purpose: first, to get rid of the slag; second, to increase the acreage of the business section in the Valley, for its boundaries were limited by the immov- able Prospect and Yoder hills. In fact, the increase in iron production and transportation made it necessary to have more ground on both sides of the rivers.
Joseph Johns' house, built of walnut logs, stood on the river bank at the upper end of Vine Street and Levergood Street. Some years ago when digging for street improvement on Vine Street, workmen found an old retaining wall standing in the middle of the present street. Now there is a street, a sidewalk, and a row of houses beyond, touching on the river bank. All this is filled-in ground.
Partially aware of the dangers of encroachment, the authorities at one time established the width of the Little Conemaugh at 110 feet, and that of the Stony Creek at 175 feet. This was a mistake. In 1890 Little Conemaugh was fixed at 125 feet; the Stony Creek at 225 feet. Encroachments had been as much as 105 feet. The natural flow of the stream reached an all- time high in March, 1936. Since there was no accompany- ing calamity comparable to the dam break in 1889, the loss of life was small. Property damage, however, was enormous; and the actual loss was about four times as great as in the 1889 flood.
At long last, the Johnstown Channel Improvement Project was authorized by the Federal Flood Control Board of 1936. At a cost of over $8,000,000-borne by the Federal government-Johnstown is now "flood-free."
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25 The Great Flood of 1889
Torrential rains had swollen the narrowed rivers to overflowing. On Memorial Day 1889 and early the follow- ing day, Friday, May 31, afterwards known as "Black Friday," the overflow from the South Fork Dam had helped to cover the portion of the Town lying below Mar- ket Street. Rising rapidly, the water soon extended as far as Jackson Street. The mills had closed early, the stores followed, and the street cars soon stopped running. At eleven o'clock, the Poplar Street bridge was carried off. Other bridges followed. At one o'clock, the people were completely housed. Water continued to rise in the streets. The Pennsylvania Railroad agent informed the' Central Telephone Co. that the danger of the South Fork Dam breaking was increasing momentarily.
There were people in the Town who for years had feared the breaking of the dam, for there had been rumors of the slip-shod, careless, and unsound struc- ture of the breast, which already had broken twice under far less pressure. With this dangerous threat in their minds, many families started for the hills early Friday morning.
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Shortly after one o'clock, the pressure did become too great, and the breast, flimsily made of straw, stones, stumps, and sand, did give way, throwing its tremendous roaring, grinding, gushing body of water (three miles long, a mile wide in places, and sixty feet deep-ninety at the breast) into the already submerged Conemaugh Valley. Five hundred million cubic feet of water - enough barrels of water to girdle the earth-moved and angrily rushed down the Valley like a huge ava- lanche. Momentarily checked by the Conemaugh via- duct, a part of the Portage Railroad, the 18,000,000 tons of water swept like a gigantic grey cloud of dust upon the Town. But, far more solid than dust, it tumbled locomotives, factories, houses, bridges, whole trains, and thousands of human beings like toys in front of it.
At the Viaduct the water rose to 79 feet before the masonry gave way. Markings on trees and rock proved this. The water ran through the cut on the east- erly side to the height of ten feet. Niagara Falls would be a tiny cascade by comparison. The whole hissing, seething, roaring avalanche hurled itself upon the Valley.
Even if the people could have been warned at once, they could not have fled from the Valley, for the water was already between two and ten feet deep every- where. It was about ten minutes of four o'clock in the afternoon when the first wave struck the Stone Bridge, having been checked twice, first at the Viaduct and next at Bridge No. 6 of the Pennsylvania Railroad. In both cases the water ran over the tracks and through the cuts before the obstructions gave way. At ten minutes after four, the mighty moving mass of water reached
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The Great Flood of 1889
the main portion of the Town. Houses, mills, stacks, engines tumbled over like straws as the current moved along at twenty to thirty miles per hour.
When it is clear that the traffic of the strongest, richest railroad corporation on earth with unlimited men and money at its disposal was effectually blocked for thirteen days, the character and magnitude of the destruction is evident. Articles and luggage of passengers on the Day Express which had been stopped at Cone- maugh were picked up 50 miles down the river. Those who lived to remember the shriek of the whistle, which the engineer of that stopped train released when word of the dam-breaking reached him by telegraph, never forgot it. Among the lost were many non-Johnstowners on the stranded express; people who could not or would not make it to the hills.
The wave kept in a somewhat straight line with the Little Conemaugh until it reached Westmont Hill at the Stone Bridge, when, instead of following the channel, it turned up the Stony Creek. This caused the great weight behind it to open up new channels. At quarter after four, planing mills, the skating rink, "floating like Noah's Ark," and other large buildings were crushing the smaller buildings. Brick houses crumbled and wooden ones, wrenched from their foundations, floated. Roofs, ripped off, became rafts to whose ridges desperate people clung with numbing fingers. Within three minutes, the arches of the Stone Bridge were solidly filled with wreck- age which soon extended up the Stony Creek to Main Street. Bodies of human beings and animals were part of that wreckage. Only one person is known to have
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From Trail Dust to Star Dust
passed through the arches of the Stone bridge and lived. Many victims who survived were carried afloat as far out as the Eighth Ward and then swept back again.
Although many succeeded in escaping over the wreckage to the hillsides, more than 2000 lives were lost. Those rescued in the lower portion of the Town congregated in Alma Hall. Others, carried to the South Side, climbed over debris to the Dibert Street school. Others reached houses still standing. One little boy living in Woodvale, caught by the approaching avalanche and swept away on the debris, floated to the home of Rev- erend Fink at the corner of Somerset and Willow Streets -a distance of approximately five miles. When being carried past a window on the second floor, he succeeded in catching hold, and looking into the room, he saw Miss Columbia Horne. With a most pleading voice, he cried, "Missus, can I come in?"
The danger from the water was past at five-thirty. It had moved through the break in the embankment at the Stone Bridge, but a greater horror was approaching. Fires began from broken gas mains, upset stoves, or from oil. The fire at the Stone Bridge raged until Sunday evening when it was extinguished by the Pittsburgh Fire Department. At ten o'clock on that blazing "Black Friday" evening, the reflection from the fire was so bright that the print of a newspaper could be read in any part of the Town below Clinton Street. The suspense and suff- ering on that first night seemed endless to the survivors, but the horrors of the next day were worse. Such a scene of human sacrifice is difficult to imagine, for sacrifice it was to the irresponsible whims of pleasure-seekers and the
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The Great Flood of 1889
negligent building of an insecure breast of the South Fork Dam. Whole families were wiped out in a matter of seconds. Lying buried in the sand and wreckage were 2,205 lifeless bodies, swept into oblivion within five minutes.
The Pennsylvania Railroad lost 24 passenger cars, 561 freight cars, and 34 locomotives, in addition to tracks, bridges and buildings. Thirty railroad passengers lost their lives by drowning.
The chances of life for anyone in the way of the flood after the dam broke were very small. In such cases -according to the law and theory of physics-the flood advanced not with a comparatively shallow advance guard, but with a solid wall front which struck with terrible velocity and directly downward rather than from the side. The water advanced "like a wall thirty or forty feet high." The water which first flowed out was retarded by the rough surface, trees, rocks, houses, ani- mals, and other obstacles, speedily losing its velocity but furnishing an almost frictionless surface over which other water could slide like ice down a plank. Thus the top of the flood was moving faster than the bottom and so fell over the end of itself as it reached the edge-only to be retarded and lose a part of its energy and so beat down instead of driving forward any unfortunate human or house in its path.
The bottom of the flood was relatively stationary; the top had its full physical velocity due to the fall. The average velocity of its advance, therefore, became but slightly more than half the top velocity. In fact, the water rolled over itself at the front of the flood much
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From Trail Dust to Star Dust
as a wheel rolls, except that the lower part of the flood wheel never rose again once it struck the ground. This explanation was made in the "horse and buggy" age. Today, the comparison might be made with an automo- bile wheel blowing the snow behind it as it tries for traction.
The fall from the reservoir to Johnstown was about 450 feet. The actual time taken by the flood to reach Johnstown corresponds very closely with that of the theory just explained. Allowing for frictional losses, a man who met the direct impact of the torrent had the same chance of resisting it and escaping as he would in meeting the impact of Niagara Falls.
Within a space one-eighth mile wide and about one mile long, over two thousand people drowned. Every newspaper writer in the Country exhausted his vocabu- lary in an attempt to portray the scene in the fullness of its dreadful devastating details.
The main body of the flood rushed downward to the west through the heart of Johnstown, sweeping it clean and impinging directly against the mountain side. The Stone Bridge, whose resistance to the torrent piled up bodies and debris against it, was a structure of fifty feet wide, thirty-two feet high, with seven skew spans of fifty-eight feet each, carrying four tracks. The fact that the bridge stood the impact is due solely to the accident of its position and not to its strength alone. Had the torrent struck it squarely, it would probably have been swept away as if of cardboard. Fortunately or unfortu- nately its axis was exactly parallel with the path of the flood which afterwards struck the face of the mountain
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The Bettmann Archive
THE. JOHNSTOWN FLOOD DISASTER OF 1889
Courtesy Tribune-Democrat
UNKNOWN PLOT - GRANDVIEW CEMETERY - 777 UNIDENTIFIED VICTIMS OF 1889 FLOOD
The Great Flood of 1889
full force and compressed the whole of its spoils, gathered in a fourteen-mile course, into one inextricable mass with the force of tens of thousands of tons moving at nearly sixty miles per hour.
Humorous and tragic events relieved and increased the tension of the first few days that followed. So-called miracles and despicable frauds captured the imagination and the gullibility of the people.
The work of those who helped Johnstown rise from its ruins began. Help came from the whole world. The money spent by state committees after the flood amounted to $2,394,415.17. Imagine what this amount would be comparable to today. Of the 2,205 lives lost, 777 of them were never identified. These lie buried in one plot in the Grandview Cemetery.
On Saturday afternoon, the day following the flood, citizens began to organize relief committees. Mr. A. J. Moxham of the Lorain Steel Works was in general charge. Outside aid began arriving. On Saturday, a rope bridge was constructed from the Stone Bridge to a point near the Cambria Steel Works. Near the Cambria office, a wire, stretched across the Little Conemaugh, together with a small skiff, made a ferry. Until Sunday evening, all supplies, coffins, workmen, and helpers coming from Pittsburgh crossed the river here. By Wednesday, the Secretary of War had two pontoon bridges across the Stony Creek, one near Poplar Street and the other at the Beula Fording near Franklin Street. These were used until trestle bridges were completed on June 27.
Communication with the outside world was estab- lished Saturday also. Newsmen representing the leading
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newspapers in the East arrived, many of whom stayed until October. The Pittsburgh office of the Western Union got a wire through to the Stone Bridge on Sunday. First aid came through the diligent efforts of Robert Pitcairn, general agent for the Pennsylvania Railroad in Pittsburgh. Having been along the line on the day of the disaster and not being able to get nearer than Sang Hollow on Saturday morning, he returned to Pittsburgh, informed the Board of Commerce and arranged for re- lief. In the communication systems of that era, there was no conception of what we mean now when we speak of "today's news today." With the destruction of the tele- graph wires, news of the appalling disaster had not yet reached the general public.
Mr. Pitcairn, with the assistance of Mr. J. B. Scott and his committee, had baskets marked "For the Johns- town Sufferers" placed on the highways and streets of Pittsburgh. Dollars heaped up in them. The newspapers printed hourly editions containing the latest news avail- able. The Pennsylvania Railroad ran trains down Liberty Avenue where merchants and salesmen, owners and work- men alike, filled the cars with provisions and clothing. The cars not being able to come farther than the Stone Bridge had their cargoes unloaded at Morrellville and hauled by wagon over Yoder Hill (now Westmont) to South Street. On the side of the hill, near the intersection of Millcreek Road and Menoher Boulevard, the natural gas company had a reducing station. Officers of the com- pany coming from Pittsburgh walked over the hill that first day after the flood with a huge basket of sandwiches for their workmen there.
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The Great Flood of 1889
On Sunday night, June 2, Miss Clara Barton, Presi- dent of the Red Cross Society, left Washington and arrived Wednesday morning on the first through Balti- more and Ohio train. Her headquarters were near the Poplar Street bridge, for here there had been less damage by the water. Later she moved them to Walnut Street, where she stayed until October. During these five months, she provided food, clothing, household utensils, and homes for those who were worthy of the help.
Her assistants went from remaining house to re- maining house, from tent to tent, or to whatever shelter a family might have found, giving assistance and furnish- ing the needs of the family, both domestic and medical. She erected several hospitals: one for contagious diseases in Hamilton's orchard (on the southeast side of West- mont Hill) ; one of a general character, which was known as the Seventh Ward Hospital. The latter, a well-equipped hospital for its time, Miss Barton subsequently trans- ferred to some residents there who should continue her work; she herself was to bear the expenses until the citizens were able to take over. This was the founda- tion of the Conemaugh Valley Memorial Hospital. With the help of funds left in the hands of the State Flood Commission and under their supervision, $65,000 was used to construct the buildings. These were completed in January, 1892.
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